Bridge of Ajia

July 1st: Today in the history of children’s books

author:

Ajia

exist

🎂 1939 – Born: Emily Arnold McCully

An immor­tal Amer­i­can female graph­ic artist and illus­tra­tor (1939). She is rec­og­nized in the con­tem­po­rary pic­ture book world as a visu­al advo­cate for “wom­en’s his­tor­i­cal pow­er and indomitable spir­it,” and is skilled at using the dynam­ic beau­ty of French clas­si­cal water­col­or to decon­struct his­tor­i­cal stereo­types against women.

  • High­est Hon­or: Suc­cess­ful­ly reached the top and won the award with the famous nov­el “The Sky Is Under My Feet” 1993 Calde­cott Medal.
  • A time­less mas­ter­piece: The Sky Under Your Feet (Mirette on the High Wire), as well as the “Chil­dren Who Look Up at the Stars” series, which has a rich sci­en­tif­ic and his­tor­i­cal back­ground.
  • Visu­al Aes­thet­ics: McCul­ly’s writ­ing and visu­als are excep­tion­al­ly refined and imbued with ratio­nal­i­ty. In *The Sky Under Your Feet*, she recre­ates the epic sto­ry of 19th-cen­tu­ry Parisian girl Marette, who appren­tices to a leg­endary tightrope walk­er and ulti­mate­ly uses her fear­less child­like spir­it to help her mas­ter, strug­gling with acro­pho­bia, return to the high-wire. With soar­ing lines, she demon­strates to chil­dren that the only way to over­come fear is to face the abyss and have the sky at your feet.

| Birth | Emi­ly Arnold McCul­ly | Emi­ly Arnold McCul­ly (Wikipedia) |

⚰️ 2014 — Passed away: Walter Dean Myers

An immor­tal titan of African Amer­i­can chil­dren’s and young adult lit­er­a­ture (1937–2014). He was an ever­green spir­i­tu­al icon in the mid-to-late 20th cen­tu­ry, per­fect­ly blend­ing “street real­ism, reflec­tion on minor­i­ty groups, and the psy­cho­log­i­cal awak­en­ing of mar­gin­al­ized youth” across the Unit­ed States.

  • Supreme Hon­or (World-Class): Award­ed 2019 Chil­dren’s Lit­er­a­ture Her­itage Award (CLLA) Life­time Achieve­ment Award;Twice award­ed the New­bery Hon­or Award win­ner; five-time win­ner of the Prinz Prize for Lit­er­a­ture.
  • Immor­tal mas­ter­pieces: New­bery Sil­ver Medal Scor­pi­on (Scor­pi­ons)、Some­where in the Dark (Some­where in the Dark­ness)。
  • Lit­er­ary sta­tus: Miles’s writ­ing is char­ac­ter­ized by steely calm­ness, lit­er­ary restraint, and a doc­u­men­tary style imbued with the raw tex­ture of Harlem streets. Through­out his life, he refused to deceive chil­dren with false sweet­ness, instead using a noble, lit­er­ary touch to tell the sto­ries of Black teenagers’ inter­gen­er­a­tional resilience and mutu­al sup­port in the face of slum crime, gun vio­lence, gang oppres­sion, and bro­ken pater­nal love. He dig­ni­fied­ly upheld the high­est pedestal of ratio­nal­i­ty in Amer­i­can minor­i­ty lit­er­a­ture.

| Passed Away | Wal­ter Dean Myers | Wal­ter Dean Myers (Wikipedia) |

⚰️ 1995 – Passed away: Toshi Yoshida

A Japan­ese nation­al trea­sure-lev­el mas­ter of mod­ern wood­block print­ing and a non-fic­tion eco­log­i­cal pic­ture book author (1911–1995). He was an out­stand­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the famous “Yoshi­da Art Fam­i­ly” in mod­ern Japan, per­fect­ly blend­ing the tra­di­tion­al tex­ture of tra­di­tion­al Ukiyo‑e wood­block print­ing with a grand mod­ern con­cern for the life of wild ani­mals in the African wilder­ness.

  • Supreme Inter­na­tion­al Hon­ors: With her ever­green mas­ter­piece “The Quar­rel” she won the award 1986 French Prix Sor­cières (High­est Prize for Pic­ture Books).
  • A time­less, real­is­tic epic: “quar­rel” (La Querelle), and the clas­sic book “The Lion Cubs,” which chron­i­cles the growth of wild cubs under the law of the jun­gle.Young Lions / Japan­ese orig­i­nal name “はじめてのかり”).
  • Eco­log­i­cal Aes­thet­ics: In his youth, Yoshi­da Enshi con­duct­ed exten­sive research in the African wilder­ness. Through­out his life, with an almost obses­sive rig­or and a com­pas­sion­ate under­stand­ing of the equal­i­ty of all things, he carved the wild dig­ni­ty of birds and beasts on wood­en boards. His paint­ings are char­ac­ter­ized by noble com­po­si­tion and order­ly struc­ture, com­plete­ly aban­don­ing the sim­plis­tic and toy-like style of chil­dren. They allow chil­dren who have just opened their eyes to feel the breath of nature’s great life and the order of equal­i­ty among species through the most sacred lines of East­ern wood­cut.

| Passed away | Toshi Yoshi­da | Toshi Yoshi­da (Wikipedia) |

⚰️ 1982 – Death: Pura Belpré

Pratt Bel­pree Award, a renowned Puer­to Rican-Amer­i­can female col­lec­tor of folk­lore, his­tor­i­cal pio­neer nov­el­ist, and the first African American/Hispanic senior pub­lic library direc­tor in the Unit­ed States (1899–1982). She was a pio­neer­ing female fig­ure of 20th-cen­tu­ry Amer­i­can immi­grant chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture, and the high­est nation­al hon­or in the Unit­ed States, the “Pratt Bel­pree Award,” was estab­lished in her hon­or.

  • Time­less mas­ter­pieces: Sum­mer of Fire­flies (Fire­fly Sum­mer)。
  • His­tor­i­cal achieve­ments: Bel­pres ded­i­cat­ed her life to cross-cul­tur­al equal­i­ty. Dur­ing her time at the Low­er East Side Pub­lic Library in New York, she broke down ide­o­log­i­cal bar­ri­ers imposed by main­stream white ide­ol­o­gy, hand-sewing pup­pets and reviv­ing the noble oral nar­ra­tive tra­di­tion of Latin Amer­i­ca on paper and stage in both lan­guages. Her mas­ter­piece, *Sum­mer of Fire­flies*, with its remark­ably gen­tle prose, chron­i­cles the aston­ish­ing uni­ty of ear­ly immi­grant fam­i­lies as they faced social iso­la­tion and cul­tur­al clash­es, cling­ing to their nation­al pride and fam­i­ly dig­ni­ty.

| Passed Away | Pura Bel­pré | Pura Bel­pré (Wikipedia) |

⚰️ 2008 – Passed away: Maj Miturič

A Soviet/Russian nation­al trea­sure-lev­el graph­ic artist, fine art illus­tra­tor, and print­mak­ing mas­ter (1925–2008), his full name was Mai Petro­vich Miturich-Khleb­nikov. He was one of the lead­ing visu­al fig­ures who brought East­ern Euro­pean mod­ern pic­ture book aes­thet­ics to the inter­na­tion­al stage in the mid-to-late 20th cen­tu­ry.

  • Inter­na­tion­al high­est hon­or: With her illus­tra­tions for the time­less clas­sic chil­dren’s poem “The Stolen Sun,” which per­fect­ly blend the dynam­ic move­ments of tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese free­hand ink paint­ing with the tra­di­tion­al Russ­ian folk pen-and-ink hatch­ing, she won the award. Sil­ver Plaque at the inau­gur­al Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tions (BIB) in 1967.
  • Award-win­ning rep­re­sen­ta­tive works: The Stolen Sun (Krade­no­je sol­nce)。
  • Visu­al Aes­thet­ics: Mituric’s style is extreme­ly vig­or­ous and ethe­re­al. He was extreme­ly adept at using large areas of black ink in vary­ing shades of dry and wet ink, along with rough lines full of expres­sion­ist ten­sion, to present the grass­roots humor and trag­ic aes­thet­ics of nature, thus estab­lish­ing the noble spir­i­tu­al author­i­ty of Sovi­et fine art pic­ture books.

| Passed away | Maj Miturič | Май Митурич (Wikipedia) |

⚰️ 2021 — Passed away: Ann Rinaldi

A renowned Amer­i­can female his­tor­i­cal fic­tion writer and senior cur­rent affairs com­men­ta­tor for young adults (1934–2021).

  • A time­less his­tor­i­cal mas­ter­piece: Exhaust­ing the Spir­it of Char­ac­ter (Num­ber­ing All the Bones)、The Rup­ture of Char­i­ty (A Break with Char­i­ty), and Sarah Revere’s Secret (The Secret of Sarah Revere)。
  • Lit­er­ary con­no­ta­tion: Rinal­di is wide­ly rec­og­nized as the queen of his­tor­i­cal real­ism in the field of non-fic­tion and fic­tion­al his­tor­i­cal nar­ra­tives for chil­dren in the Unit­ed States. Her mas­ter­piece, *Count­less Spir­its*, tells the sto­ry of the ardu­ous strug­gle of under­priv­i­leged boys and peo­ple of col­or fac­ing sep­a­ra­tion and death in the ruins of Ander­son­ville pris­on­er-of-war camp at the end of the Amer­i­can Civ­il War, with an extreme­ly detached and unvar­nished real­is­tic style. With the restraint of pure lit­er­a­ture, she dig­ni­fied­ly helps young read­ers estab­lish an inde­pen­dent and crit­i­cal par­a­digm for reflect­ing on war and uphold­ing order.

| Passed Away | Ann Rinal­di | Ann Rinal­di (Wikipedia) |

⚰️ 2018 — Passed away: Günther Stiller

A renowned Ger­man graph­ic artist, satir­i­cal car­toon­ist, and book design­er (1927–2018).

  • Immor­tal mas­ter­pieces: Clas­sic Ger­man mod­ern absurd pic­ture book The first edi­tion of the com­plete set of illus­tra­tions for “What Do Mice Think on Thurs­days?”（Was denkt die Maus am Don­ner­stag?).
  • His­tor­i­cal impact: His mas­ter­piece was includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”. Stiller devot­ed his life to the ancient Cen­tral Euro­pean hand-etched hatch­ing and Bauhaus geo­met­ric plane com­po­si­tion aes­thet­ics. The rats and urban lines in his paint­ings are absurd and clear, com­plete­ly break­ing the rigid indoc­tri­na­tion of tra­di­tion­al chil­dren’s books. He used extreme­ly ratio­nal line draw­ing to sup­port the intel­lec­tu­al height of chil­dren’s fan­ta­sy books.

| Passed away | Gün­ther Stiller | Gün­ther Stiller (Wiki­da­ta) |

⚰️ 2018 — Passed away: Peter Firmin

An immor­tal British graph­ic artist, pio­neer­ing pup­peteer, and book design­er of the mid-to-late 20th cen­tu­ry (1928–2018).

  • Time­less visu­al clas­sics: The Ivory Train series（Ivor the Engine(Writ­ten by Oliv­er Post­gate).
  • Cul­tur­al influ­ence: Born in the 1950s, *Ivory Train* was includ­ed in *1001 Chil­dren’s Books* and adapt­ed into a time­less stop-motion ani­ma­tion by the BBC. Philmin­er brought to life this steam loco­mo­tive, a crea­ture of inde­pen­dent life that roamed the Welsh val­leys, with his flu­id, warm, and intel­lec­tu­al­ly stim­u­lat­ing wood­cuts and water­col­or lines, a loco­mo­tive that loved to sing hymns. With his pro­found child­like won­der and anti-util­i­tar­i­an aes­thet­ics, he estab­lished a warm and endur­ing clas­si­cal dig­ni­ty for pop­u­lar British pic­ture books in the post­war era.

| Passed Away | Peter Firmin | Peter Firmin (Wikipedia) |

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